2008 in pictures

RA chronicles the year in partying from around the globe.

Eadweard Muybridge was one of the pioneers of photography, helping to explain human and animal motion via the use of multiple cameras. Today, we do the same on the dance floor: Seemingly any event that you stumble upon has myriad amateur and professional photographers documenting every human and (party) animal that walks through the door.

It's a primal thing, this urge to capture your memories—and the RA community has been incredibly diligent about it in 2008, posting more than 2,000 galleries over the course of the year from parties that took place in the usual haunts (London, New York, Berlin) and some unlikely ones as well (China, Singapore, South Africa). We thought there was no better way to say thanks to the hard-working artists that have shared their work with the world than to showcase it once more.

What follows are some of the best photographs to feature on RA, broken down by month, with some festival highlights thrown in for good measure. We hope you enjoy the show.